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any creaking-gurgling-bumping phenomenon that Loyola had ever experienced.
    It sounded like somebody whimpering.
    A more or less sensible soul, Loyola was aware that she sometimes awakened hearing leftover sounds from a lingering dream. The sleepy woman raised her head from the pillow and listened intently.
It seems quiet enough now, so I’ll just lay down and close my eyes and—
No.
There it goes again.
But now the sound was not so much a whimpering as a plaintive
bleating.
Of the kind that will not cease until attended to.
    Like a hungry baby or Nancy the nanny goat. The animal was a sound sleeper, who rarely stirred in the middle of the night unless threatened by a hungry coyote. Or bear. Or mountain lion.
    Damnation—if it ain’t one thing, it’s something worse!
Loyola got out of bed and padded into her darkened kitchen, where she heard the pitiful summons for a third time.
Maybe the poor thing’s scared of the witches, and wants to come inside.
    The lady of the house picked up a butcher knife with her right hand, used her left one to unlock the back door. She opened it.
    What did she find?
    Not a coyote or a bear or a mountain lion.
    But her dear old nanny goat was, in a manner of speaking, on the backporch. The poor creature, throat slit, was hanging upside down from a two-by-six rafter. Nancy’s blood dripped onto the porch floor. As the Apache elder cut the goat down, tears rolled down her leathery cheeks. She said a few comforting words before putting the animal out of its misery.
    Loyola felt rather than saw several pairs of eyes watching her from their dark concealment. The sly night breeze whispered in her ear:
You’d better get out of here . . . find someplace to hide.
Triggered by a signal from somewhere deep in her visceral region, the elderly lady’s adrenaline pump turned on to prepare her for flight or fight. The former choice was not an option. Cold fury invariably vanquishes fear—along with any residue of common sense.
    Loyola set her jaw.
This time, those witches have gone too far. There’s going to be nine kinds of hell to pay!
The outraged old woman addressed her unseen tormenters aloud with a cold, hard calmness. “You’ve done it now, you mean sons of bitches.” She raised the butcher knife over her head like a banner. “This means
war
!”
    This was no idle threat.
    The furious old warrior entered her house without bothering to lock the door behind her. She stomped across the kitchen floor, marched into her bedroom, and opened the corner closet. Loyola yanked her dead husband’s World War II .45 caliber automatic pistol out of a scruffy old duffel bag. She ejected the magazine, counted seven fat cartridges, popped the magazine back into the slot, and expertly loaded one into the barrel.
    Loyola returned to her darkened kitchen, the .45 in her hand. By now, the angry, dangerous lady was aching for revenge. Out of nowhere, a question occurred to her:
What would Geronimo or General George Patton do in a situation like this?
The answer was obvious.
    Attack.
    Despite her shortcomings in making sound judgments, the elderly woman was not such a fool as to make a frontal assault that was bound to end in disaster. She sat down at the kitchen table to rest, and to consider the situation.
All of those witches are young and strong, and I’m outnumbered by at least a dozen to one.
The widow had a few modest aspirations, chief of which was to live to be 101 years old.
    She realized that successful assaults, particularly those made by the flinty-faced Apache chieftain and the daring World War II general, invariably followed carefully laid-out plans. But most important of all, those military strategists were known for making swift, bold moves that the enemy
did not expect
. Loyola had one significant advantage over her enemies:
They expect me to cower all night here in my house like a frightened old woman who’s scared of her shadow.
Her course of action was obvious:
I’ll surprise the